International free software organizations have declared the last Wednesday in March to be Document Freedom Day (DFD). Activities and information events will take place all over the world, including Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.

"Will you be able to read your documents 20 years from now?" ask the organizers in their rally cry for DFD 2010. Their claim is that only open standards like the Open Document Format offers a guarantee. Everyone can use these formats without restrictions or implement them in software.

The Document Freedom Day on March 31, intends to draw attention to the important role played by free formats in the exchange and saving of information. The organizers, Free Software Foundation Europe, ANSOL and Fundacion Via Libre offer many suggestions for support activities, from web banners, blog entries, letter/postcard campaigns to public information events. Help can be found on the DFD action page.

Today the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software projects such as Samba.